This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Sports stars used to tell us to eat our Wheaties. Then they started endorsing luxury watches, had Nikes named after them and were paid to wear gaily-logoed performance gear.

These days, the sweat set is adding another giant win to their books; they’re stepping in for lacquered screen goddesses and are posing with beauty products in the latest cluster of beauty product endorsements.

Last week, skin-care giant Biotherm named tennis superstar Milos Raonic, 21, of Thornhill, Ont., its North American product ambassador. Raonic takes over the role from the last Biotherm guy, Sex and the City actor Chris Noth.

Pantene is also bulking up its range of spokesmodels. In previous hair ads, the brand featured actors Eva Mendes and Naomi Watts and supermodel Gisele Bündchen swooshing around their glossy locks. This time — timed to an advertising campaign leading to the summer Olympics in London — the hair care company has secured a team of 11 women athletes, all internationally ranked, as its latest brand ambassadors.

Among them is Canadian swimmer Annamay Pierse, the 28-year-old world champion for the 200 metre breaststroke. Hailing from Edmonton, Pierse is also a student at the University of British Columbia. Pierse thinks the beauty connection to swimming is logical; after all, swimmers are hard on their hair.

Article Continued Below

“Because Pantene is designed to meet some of the toughest hair challenges, I trust it to make my hair look great so I can concentrate on training,” says Pierse.

For its part, Pantene’s parent company, Procter & Gamble, is harnessing the healthy angle with its new ambassador.

“We’ve chosen to partner with her not only for her vast accomplishments in her sport but because of her dedication to a healthy lifestyle that we are confident will resonate with Canadians,” says Thom Lachman, president of P&G Canada.

Pierse sees this gig as being different from classic endorsement contracts. “Representing a hair-care brand allows the public to see you as more than just an athlete. So often female athletes are seen as tomboys and not feminine.

“Partnering with Pantene has allowed me to show my elegant side, the fact that I can be the best in the world and still look great getting there,” she says. “They can focus on my beauty and my strength because ultimately I wouldn’t have one without the other.”

Rosalie Ward is a public relations specialist who has worked on product placement for television and movies — including the Sex and the City franchise — in the U.S. and Canada. She sees the move to athletes for beauty product endorsements as a natural extension of the branding of celebrities, or “celebu-branding.”

“In this age of whole foods and holistic lifestyles, somehow athletes seem a safer bet as role models to for advertisers,” says Ward. “Of course there have been a few bombs like Tiger Woods, but for the most part . . . athletes are probably eating healthy . . . And without question, they are working out and taking care of themselves.”

In his new partnership, Raonic, ranked No. 32 in men’s singles, will have his own Facebook page to update fans on his tennis exploits and expose them to the Biotherm line. The tennis sensation will also perform brand duties at various sporting events.

Alexander Keller, the senior vice-president of L’Oreal Luxe Canada, says the synergy between the athlete and the company is about similar values. “Milos is a dynamic and determined young athlete and he embodies the core values of Biotherm Homme that are performance masculinity and authenticity.”

Raonic finds the best-selling men’s skin care line in the world appealing for simpler reasons. Their products are “easy to use,” and “they represent values that I strongly believe in,” he says.

Noth could work the anti-aging lines with aplomb, but for now baby-faced Raonic will concentrate on the Aquapower moisturizer. After all, he has plenty of time to grow up with a skin-care program.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com